The majority of Europeans - UK, French, German and Greek residents among them - distrust mainstream media coverage of the conflict in eastern Ukraine, a recent poll targeting over 4,000 people, reveals.

Greeks appear to have showed the least faith in their domestic
media, with a total of 76 percent saying they were ‘fairly’ or
‘totally distrustful’ of mainstream reports on Ukraine. In
Germany, the same opinion was shared by 57 percent of
respondents.

Britons, on the other hand, have great trust in the mainstream
media’s handling of the situation. As many as 55 percent of
respondents stated they put a fair amount of trust in the
coverage of events in eastern Ukraine by British media. Some 33
percent said it was biased, however.

In France, 47 percent of respondents said they don't trust the
Ukraine conflict coverage.

An average of 54 percent
of the European residents put little or no trust in how
mainstream media cover the Ukrainian conflict. According to the
poll, 39 percent of respondents said they had "not very much"
trust in mainstream media when it comes to reporting on the
Ukrainian crisis "accurately and fairly," while 15 percent of all
respondents stated they had ‘no faith at all’ left in respect to
such media reports. Only according to four percent the reporting
was trustworthy.

The survey, which was carried out from March 20 to April 9, 2015
was conducted by the British ICM Research agency for Sputnik
News.

The Ukrainian conflict began April 2014 after Kiev sent troops to
Donetsk and Lugansk Regions as people there refused to recognize
the new coup-imposed authorities in the capital. A year of
fighting in southeastern Ukraine has resulted in over 6,000
deaths, including score of civilians, according to rough UN
estimates. Many say that in reality, these figures might be much
higher.

Kiev, along with its Western allies, has pointed the finger at
Russia, alleging it provided support for anti-government
militias. Moscow has repeatedly denied such allegations. Russia’s
Foreign Ministry said that the US has been working to undermine
the February Minsk peace deal by sending military instructors
from the US, UK and Canada to Ukraine to train the troops from
Ukraine’s National Guard.

“This prompts the question: Do they – in Washington, London
and Ottawa – understand whom are we talking about? As they are
the same Ukrainian ultra-nationalists from volunteer battalions
who wore Nazi emblems and smeared themselves with the blood of
women, children and the elderly during reprisal raids in Donbass
[southeastern Ukraine],” Russia’s Foreign Ministry’s
spokesman Aleksandr Lukashevich said last week.